• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.04a
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• pp.132-134
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• 2006

To improve equipment throughput and device yield, a malfunction in plasma equipment should be accurately diagnosed. A recognition model for plasma diagnosis was constructed by applying neural network to scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of plasma-etched patterns. The experimental data were collected from a plasma etching of tungsten thin films. Faults in plasma were generated by simulating a variation in process parameters. Feature vectors were obtained by applying direct and wavelet techniques to SEM Images. The wavelet techniques generated three feature vectors composed of detailed components. The diagnosis models constructed were evaluated in terms of the recognition accuracy. The direct technique yielded much smaller recognition accuracy with respect to the wavelet technique. The improvement was about 82%. This demonstrates that the direct method is more effective in constructing a neural network model of SEM profile information.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.9-14
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• 2005

The nature of the signals collected by an SEM(Scanning Electron Microscope) in order to form images are all dependent on the detector used to collect them, and the quality of an acquired image is strongly influenced by detector performance. Therefore, the development of detector with high performance is very important in pulling up the resolution of SEM This study presents the secondary electron detector for use in scanning electron microscope, electric circuit and I/V conversion circuit for driving that detector.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.153-158
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• 2007

The present study covers numerical analysis of a thermionic scanning electron microscope(SEM) column. The SEM column contains an electron optical system in which electrons are emitted and moved to form a focused beam, and this generates secondary electrons from the specimen surfaces, eventually making an image. The electron optical system mainly consists of a thermionic electron gun as the beam source, the lens system, the electron control unit, and the vacuum unit. For a systematic design of the electron optical system, the beam trajectories are investigated through numerical analyses by tracing the ray path of the electron beams, and the quality of resulting image is evaluated from the analysis results.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.513-517
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• 2004

The nature of the signals collected by an SEM(Scanning Electron Microscope) in order to form images are all dependent on the detector used to collect them, and the quality of an acquired image is strongly influenced by detector performance. Therefore, the development of detector with high performance is very important in pulling up the resolution of SEM. In this article, electron beam-specimen interactions, the detection principle of secondary electrons and backscattered electrons, and the structure of a conventional detector are described. The structure of an experimental apparatus for the future study on our hopeful novel electron detector is presented as well.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.71-75
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• 2016

The scanning electron microscope (SEM) offers two-dimensional (2D) micrographs of three-dimensional (3D) objects due to its inherent operating mechanisms. To overcome this limitation, other devices have been used for quantitative morphological analysis. Many efforts have been made on the applications of software-based approaches to 3D reconstruction and measurements by SEM. Based on the acquisition of two stereo images, a multi-view technique consists of two parts: (i) geometric calibration and (ii) image matching. Quantitative morphological parameters such as height and depth could be nondestructively measured by SEM combined with special software programs. It is also possible to obtain conventional surface parameters such as roughness and volume of biomedical specimens through 3D SEM surface reconstruction. There is growing evidence that conventional 2D SEM without special electron detectors can be transformed to 3D SEM for quantitative measurements in biomedical research.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.39-46
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• 1972

There are many kinds of microscopes suitable for general studies; optical microscopes(OM), conventional transmission electron microscopes (TEM), and scanning electron microscopes(SEM). The optical microscopes and the conventional transmission electron microscopes are very familiar. The images of these microscopes are directly formed on an image plane with one or more image forming lenses. On the other hand, the image of the scanning electron microscope is formed on a fluorescent screen of a cathode ray tube using a scanning system similar to television technique. In this paper, the features and some applications of the scanning electron microscope will be discussed briefly. The recently available scanning electron microscope, combining a resolution of about $200{\AA}$ with great depth of field, is favorable when compared to the replica technique. It avoids the problem of specimen damage and the introduction of artifacts. In addition, it permits the examination of many samples that can not be replicated, and provides a broader range of information. The scanning electron microscope has found application in diverse fields of study including biology, chemistry, materials science, semiconductor technology, and many others. In scanning electron microscopy, the secondary electron method. the backscattererd electron method, and the electromotive force method are most widely used, and the transmitted electron method will become more useful. Change-over of magnification can be easily done by controlling the scanning width of the electron probe. It is possible. to continuously vary the magnification over the range from 100 times to 1.00,000 times without readjustment of focusing. Conclusion: With the development of a scanning. electron microscope, it is now possible to observe almost all-information produced through interactions between substances and electrons in the form of image. When the probe is properly focused on the specimen, changing magnification of specimen orientation does not require any change in focus. This is quite different from the conventional transmission electron microscope. It is worthwhile to note that the typical probe currents of $10^{-10}$ to $10^{-12}\;{\AA}$ are for below the $10^{-5}$ to $10^{-7}\;{\AA}$ of a conventional. transmission microscope. This reduces specimen contamination and specimen damage due to heatings. Outstanding features of the scanning electron microscope include the 'stereoscopic observation of a bulky or fiber specimen in high resolution' and 'observation of potential distribution and electromotive force in semiconductor devices'.

• International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.28-33
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• 2008

In a scanning electron microscope (SEM), outside acoustic noise causes image noise that distorts observations of the specimen being examined. A SEM that is less sensitive to acoustic noise is highly desirable. This paper investigates the image noise problem by addressing the mode shapes of the base plate and the transmission path of the acoustic noise and vibration. By arranging the position of the rib, a new SEM base plate was developed that had twisting as the 1st and 2nd modes. In those two twisting modes, vibration nodes existed near the center of the base plate where the specimen chamber is placed. Less vibration was transmitted to the chamber and to the specimen by the twisting modes compared to bending ones, which are the 2nd and 3rd modes for a rectangular plain base plate. An SEM with the developed base plate installed exhibited a significant reduction of image noise when exposed to acoustic noises below 250 Hz.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.937-938
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• 2009

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.214-217
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• 2015

This study introduces metal coating as an effective sample preparation method to remove charge-up caused by the shadow effect during field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) analysis of dynamic structured samples. During a FE-SEM analysis, charge-up occurs when the primary electrons (input electrons) that scan the specimens are not equal to the output electrons (secondary electrons, backscattered electrons, auger electrons, etc.) generated from the specimens. To remove charge-up, a metal layer of Pt, Au or Pd is applied on the surface of the sample. However, in some cases, charge-up still occurs due to the shadow effect. This study developed a coating method that effectively removes charge-up. By creating a converted sample stage capable of simultaneous tilt and rotation, the shadow effect was successfully removed, and image data without charge-up were obtained.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.92-98
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• 2009

The scanning electron microscope (SEM) contains an electron optical system in which electrons are emitted and moved to form a focused beam, and generates secondary electrons from the specimen surfaces, eventually making an image. The electron optical system usually contains two condenser lenses and an objective lens. The condenser lenses generate a magnetic field that forces the electron beams to form crossovers at desired locations. The objective lens then focuses the electron beams on the specimen. The present study covers the design and analysis of an objective lens for a thermionic SEM. A finite element (FE) analysis for the objective lens is performed to analyze its magnetic characteristics for various lens designs. Relevant beam trajectories are also investigated by tracing the ray path of the electron beams under the magnetic fields inside the objective lens.